


The Usual Way

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Character Death, Child Abandonment, Everyone is still in Beleriand, F/M, Family, Gen, Oromë is late
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2020-07-29 12:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20082334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: Feanor is the one to find them because Feanor never lets little things like possible death stop him from being the one to go deepest into the woods, particularly when he has a new sibling on the way who will need food.(Or: There is a reason that Amrod and Amras, having found a baby in the woods, assume that they have acquired a child in the usual way.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Or: In Which Oromë is Spectacularly Late, and Finwe’s Family Aspires to Avoiding Becoming a Disaster
> 
> This is heavily inspired by my previous “In Which Oromë is Late” story, but diverges from it in that by the time Feanor has married Nerdanel, Oromë has still not shown up and discovered the elves. This is also heavily inspired by a line in "Bearing Children" in which Amrod and Amras find a baby in the woods and then tell Maedhros they got the baby in 'the usual way.'
> 
> Also: I have mixed the usage of Sindarin and Quenyan names on the probably faulty assumption that if the two peoples hadn’t diverged, the language they had would be something that was not quite either. Not being a linguist, I had no idea what those changes were likely to be, so … here we are.
> 
> I don't own the Silmarillion.

Feanor is the one to find them because Feanor never lets little things like possible death stop him from being the one to go deepest into the woods, particularly when he has a new sibling on the way who will need food.

Nolofinwe is with him because he follows his brother everywhere he can, especially now that Feanor has gone and gotten married and shares a tent with Nerdanel instead of them.

It’s a tent he pitches right next to their’s, and he’s promised Nolofinwe that he and Nerdanel will keep following Finwe in their people’s slow trek across the land, ever in search of more food, instead of going off on their own as some do, but it’s still different, and he hasn’t quite managed to reconcile Nolofinwe to it yet. He just needs a little more time.

All of that slips to the back of his mind the moment they find the camp.

It’s a much smaller one than their’s, just three tents pitched by a small stream that runs burbling through the silent trees. 

It’s also a much quieter one that their’s. No one’s fetching water from the stream. No one’s tending the fire that’s been allowed to burn down to embers. No one’s talking quietly within the tents.

There are hoof prints in the soft mud by the stream’s bank. There are other marks, shallower ones, that look like nothing he’s ever seen before, and suddenly the shadows between the trees seem darker than they were.

“Feanor,” Nolofinwe said, voice tight. “Look. The Hunter’s been here.”

“I saw,” he breathes, voice barely audible, just in case something is still lurking, but he has to know, so he still steals forward grimly to look into the tent.

Probably the grim Hunter has rode on. Probably he wouldn’t bother them anyway; he prefers elves who wander alone to elves who travel together, even if they’re only in groups of two.

Then again, he seems to have carried away the whole camp.

He’s glad when Nolofinwe sticks close to him.

The first two tents are empty of people, though there are blankets and food and a few other items they might take back, as sick as it makes him. They can’t afford waste.

The third tent is not empty.

The third tent has three children inside.

One is only an infant, tucked into the eldest boy’s arms. The third child is clinging on too. All three have wax or cloth stuffed into their ears, and the eldest boy looks at the others like he’s afraid if he blinks they’ll disappear.

His eyes go even wider when he sees them.

Feanor kneels down to put himself at their level, and Nolofinwe follows belatedly.

The eldest boy looks at them suspiciously for a long moment before slowly removing the blob of wax from his ear. He holds it ready to jam back in at a moment’s notice, though.

“I’m Feanor, and this is my brother, Nolofinwe,” he says. “What’s your name?”

The boy relaxes just a little at the mention of brother and even more when he hears the -finwe. Everyone knows of their father. 

“Maitimo,” he says quietly. He hugs the other two children impossibly closer. He does not volunteer their names.

“What happened?” Nolofinwe asks.

Maitimo promptly bursts into tears.

…

(The story, as it comes out later, is this: Maitimo’s mother had gone to get water from the stream last night and never returned. Her brother, who was the youngest boy’s father, had gone to look for her. He hadn’t come back either. At that point, the remaining adults had known better than to send anyone else. They had known.

But then the whispers had started.

And then the screams. 

Maitimo had blood on his fingernails from where they had dug into his father’s arm as he desperately tried to keep their last remaining protector from going outside.

His father had shaken him off.

Maitimo had clapped his hands over his ears before the whispers could turn their attention on him.)

…

Maitimo clings to his brother’s shirt as Feanor carries both of them back to camp, and he keeps a suspicious eye on how Nolofinwe is carrying his cousin the whole way there.

The baby in Nolofinwe’s arms frets.

But the middle boy, the one Maitimo calls ‘Laure in a soft, frightened voice - he doesn’t make a single noise.

Not once.

…

Their father looks older when they tell him what’s happened. The Hunter has grown bolder, and still they are no closer to finding a way to protect themselves from him, or any of the other horrors that lurk in the endless trees.

Nameless horrors aside, there are still three children that need looking after. Finwe manages to pry the names of the younger two out of Maitimo: Macalaure and Carnistir. His other question, if they have other family somewhere, fares more poorly. If there are others out there, Maitimo doesn’t know.

Feanor gets a curious look on his face as soon as it becomes apparent that they’re going to have to find someone to look after them.

…

(“Nerdanel,” he says, leaning against the tree that she is perched in the lower branches of, chipping stone into arrowheads, “you still want children, don’t you?”

Nerdanel does want children. She is, however, somewhat suspicious of her dear husband’s tone. “I do,” she says slowly, not quite committing to anything. 

“How do you feel about three?”)

…

The three children are absorbed into the camp easily enough. Maitimo follows Feanor around like a second shadow, and Macalaure toddles after, one hand clutching his brother’s shirt. Nerdanel binds Carnistir to her back the way the other women do and sings to him as she works.

Feanor works hard to make sure all the children have enough. He will not have another Findis. Maitimo helps him solemnly, bright and quick and always watchful.

He never lets Feanor wander into the trees for even two paces alone.

Macalaure still doesn’t speak, but Feanor returns from collecting fruit with Maitimo one day to find him hiding behind a tree one day while Nerdanel sings to the baby.

When she stops, Macalaure starts quietly humming the tune.

Maitimo makes a soft sound, and Feanor looks down and, for the first time, sees him smile.

…

He doesn’t plan on it happening again, because finding children in the woods is never something you plan on, but he isn’t entirely surprised either.

After all, the woods grow more dangerous every year.

It starts with whispers this time. Whispers of something new in the trees - something that looks like an elven child but runs with wolves and has blood on its teeth.

As it turns out, that story is correct in every particular except for the part where it claims the boy only looks like an elvish child. Standing across from the child now and seeing the wonder in his eyes as he takes in Feanor’s bright clothes, Feanor’s pretty sure that an elvish child is exactly what he is.

Feanor takes a cautious step forward.

The boy bares his teeth and growls before he takes off running through the trees.

… 

They can’t just leave him out there. It isn’t safe.

He folds up a gift of food in bright red cloth that Nerdanel has donated to the cause at the edge of their camp. Macalaure pats his shoulder and hums a questioning noise.

“I’m trying to bring you home a new little brother,” he explains, though he’s not sure if little is the right term or not. Maitimo has shot up these past few years, but Macalaure remains worryingly small.

Macalaure hums a happy note and offers up his small wooden horse to add to the pile.

… 

It takes three gifts of food to lure the boy into their camp, and it’s the growing chill of winter that finally drives him all the way in to the warmth of their fire.

Nerdanel wraps him him in a blanket, and his growl seems half-hearted. He curls into the warmth, and when they wake up in a morning, he’s still there, safe in the middle of the pile of warm bodies the children inevitably make.

… 

The boy doesn’t talk - or, no, as Feanor corrects the unwary sharply, he does talk, he talks perfectly well - he’s just speaking in the tongue of wolves instead of the tongue of elves. They’ve managed to teach him a few words already, but they can’t expect him to learn overnight.

Feanor listens to his growls and watches his body language and learns to speak his tongue while they’re teaching him their’s, just as he’s learned the meanings of every one of Macalaure’s wordless hums.

… 

(The full story never does come out, for obvious reasons, but they can guess the outlines well enough - parents gone, child left alone, and, by some miracle, taken in instead of eaten by a pack of wolves.

They do not guess the unthinkable truth: That sometimes, a child may be left deliberately behind during a particularly hungry winter.)

…

The child’s original name, whatever it might have been, is lost. Maitimo calls him Celegorm after one too many days of him rising before the stars have reached the proper place in their dance, and for good or ill, the name sticks.

… 

Three years later, when Nerdanel announces that there’s going to be another baby, Carnistir’s eyes swing towards the woods as if he expects his new sibling to come toddling out at any moment.

_“I’m_ having a baby,” Nerdanel clarifies.

Feanor whoops and picks her up to swing her, laughing, through the air.

He doesn’t see the looks that the older children share.

… 

Celegorm doesn’t think to be concerned, and Carnistir is still too young, but Maitimo works harder than ever, and Macalaure - 

Macalaure goes and sits by his father’s feet and helps him work on the new type of bow Feanor has been crafting, and then he says, “Will you still want us after the baby comes?”

Feanor drops the bow and turns to stare down at Macalaure’s hunched shoulders because he can’t quite believe that the small, scratched voice he just heard was Macalaure. Talking. Actually talking.

Then the rest of what he says sinks in, and _oh._ He knows that feeling. He’d turned every ounce of it into jealousy and fury and hurled it all at tiny Findis.

“Till the end of the world,” he promises.

Macalure talks more, after that.

. . . 

The new baby is small, but not too small, and Nerdanel is tired, but not, the midwife assures him, too tired. Everything is fine. Everything will reamain fine.

Finding children in the woods is much less stressful.

They let the other children hold the baby one by one.

“Small,” Celegorm whispers in an awed tone. Little Curufin has caught hold of one of his fingers and refuses to let go.

“For now,” Feanor agrees. “Let’s go show him to your uncles outside.”

…

Technically, Feanor doesn’t find the twins in the woods. Someone else does that part.

But. Well. Apparently the given assumption amongst Finwe’s people is that any unclaimed children found in the forest are now his and Nerdanel’s.

Neither of them is going to complain about it.

… 

(Two months later, Oromë shows up and tells them of a land where light shines like fire and the dead can still walk.

Feanor looks down at six of his seven children and immediately feels guilty for his heart’s pained twist.)

(Things don’t improve when someone brings up Miriel.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are not better in Aman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone!
> 
> I’m still in love with this idea, so I’ve decided to try and continue it although I'm not sure how many more chapters I plan to write yet. Happy family fluff for the holidays!
> 
> (Okay, it’s not fluffy. At all. But it’s definitely family.)
> 
> All non-canon names were taken from fantasynamegenerators.com

There has been much talk along the journey about the dead that will return to them when they reach the land of shining light. For most, this talk is joyful.

For Feanor’s family, things are more complicated.

He refuses to say a word of his fears in front of the children, but they must bubble up somehow, and he takes it out on the ice they must cross, hammering the tool he has crafted for this purpose into it with force that is absolutely necessary if they are going to be able to fish through the ice.

That is not, admittedly, the only reason he does it, but it’s something to tell the children.

Nolofinwe is a man grown now, but he looks younger from his perch on the wood pile that he is nervously watching Feanor from. “They’ll figure something out,” he says. “They can - “ But his imagination fails him.

Feanor hits the ice with particular force. “Indis is pregnant again,” he points out. “I think they’ve already worked out what they’re going to do.” And how will his mother feel when she returns and sees herself replaced?

She will always have a place with Feanor, but will she consider that enough? And how could she bear to see the children of the one who replaced her?

He had spent ages staring up at the stars as a child, promising anything as long as his mother might come back, but the thought of never seeing Nolofinwe or little Arafinwe again terrifies him. It brings back all the old memories of little Findis, who had grown weaker and weaker until she was gone entirely and they’d covered her with earth to never be seen again -

Except Findis too will return.

Will she still be so small? Even with more food, will they be able to save her, or are they doomed to watch her die, again and again and again?

He hits the ice again. Splinters of it spray into the air and hit his face, but he hardly cares.

“I don’t know that it is decided,” Nolofinwe says a little hesitantly. He wipes away the icy spray from his own face and looks down. “Mother certainly doesn’t seem certain that it is.”

Indis is not Feanor’s problem. If his father had just waited - 

He could never wish his brothers away. Not now.

He had hated Findis, and she had died, and it didn’t matter that he knew now that those two things had not been at all connected. He could never wish his siblings away. 

But he wishes Indis had married someone else. That Nolo and Ara could have been his full brothers in truth, Findis his full sister, and that he had nothing to fear from the Halls of the Dead when they at last arrived.

He pushes the thought away and starts hitting the ice once more. “That is not my only concern,” he reminds Nolofinwe, and he shoots a pointed look at his family’s tent which is practically shaking with the force of his children’s laughter.

Except they are not all his. Not quite.

Not when their parents will be waiting on the other shore, eager to tear them out of his arms.

Nolofinwe slumps a little. “Maybe you can share?” he tries.

Feanor raises an incredulous eyebrow at him and swings with all his might at the ice.

He breaks through at last with the worst spray of splinters yet. One bites into his cheek hard enough to draw blood, but that hardly matters.

He will be in much greater pain soon enough.

…

Aman is shining and brilliant and everything they were promised, or close enough.

It does have light and food and respite from the cruel hunter.

It does not have all the answers. As proven by the upcoming hearing when they will decide not just who Finwe is by law married to, but, based on this, who can be allowed to return from the Halls and who must be considered marred.

He has tried to prepare himself for the fury and grief of his father choosing to remain married to Indis over returning to his mother.

He is not at all prepared for what will happen if his father still chooses Indis even in the face of this.

But there is still time before all of that happens, and if his father does choose Indis, then perhaps it will be better if his children are as safe from the backlash, safe from the taint the Valar may decide he bears.

It is the proper thought for a parent, he knows. It does not stop him holding onto the children more tightly than he should - letting Macalaure ride on his back as he walks, even though he is really too big for it, holding on to Carnistir and Celegorm’s hands. For once, Celegorm does not squirm in his grip. Instead, he pulls closer, trying to take shelter behind the older elf’s form.

Maitimo carries Amrod and keeps a close eye on Amras, who is probably too young to be walking all this way on his own but who had insisted on it all the same.

Nerdanel carries Curufin whose hands are holding tightly to her hair. Unlike the twins, he is just old enough to understand what is going on.

Nerdanel’s face is white, and she has refused to let anyone else carry Curufin the whole long walk to the Halls.

He is the only one she can be sure will not be torn away from her.

They are not the only ones to come to the Halls of the Dead, but the crowd parts respectfully before them. He is still their Crown Prince, at least for now.

At the moment, he wishes fiercely that they had been left at the very end of the line.

It is not Namo himself standing outside the vast doors but one of the Maia whose grey form is mostly elvish but flickers disconcertingly. 

“We have come to seek these children’s parents,” Feanor tells him, and the words are tight in his throat, both for the obvious reason and because Macalaure is clinnging to him so tightly that he has almost formed a chokehold.

The Maia’s eyes go distant as if reading some unseen list. 

“Maitimo and Macalaure. Sons of Romdir and Cabrien.”

Macalaure leans forward with a little huff of breath, heart beating so hard that Feanor can feel it. 

He realizes with a start that before now, he hadn’t known the elves’ names. Maitimo had spoken of their parents, a little, but he had never used names and perhaps never known them.

“Romdir and Cabrien are not in these Halls.”

Feanor’s mind goes blank.

“They are returned already?” Nerdanel asks, and that makes sense he realizes. He is not thinking properly.

The Maia turns to her. “No. They have never come to these Halls.”

“But the Hunter took them!” Maitimo cries, leaning forward a little, a strain of desperation in his voice.

The selfishness of his own pain hits Feanor harder than ever before. Of course they want their own parents back. He longs for his own mother instead of Indis; how can he blame them?

He does not like to think that his children view him as he thinks of Indis.

But even thinking this cannot make the pain vanish away. It only adds to his shame.

Perhaps he is marred.

“So it is recorded,” the Maia agrees. “But they are not dead. They were twisted by Melkor to his own cruel ends before his capture.”

Macalaure buries his face in Feanor’s neck. Maitimo has gone as pale as Nerdanel. “They’re still alive?”

“Where are they? How are they guarded?” Feanor asks, mind already working. They can cross the ice bridge if they must, of course, but it will take so long. 

That they will go is not in question. They are his father’s people and cannot be left in torment; they are his sons’ parents’, and as selfish as he is, he cannot possibly justify -

“They cannot be saved,” the Maia says. “Their very spirits have been twisted. They have become monsters that will kill any who attempt to reach them. They shall find no healing until the end of Arda.” Then he turns to Carnistir and says, “That is also the fate of this one’s father. His mother, however, resides here. Her spirit is much troubled, but it shall recover in time.”

Feanor’s mind is still stuck on the way Romdir and Cabrien have been dismissed and condemned. It is Nerdanel who speaks while Carnistir’s hand shakes in Feanor’s grip.

“How much time?” Nerdanel demands. “A year? A decade?”

The Maia turns to her. “It will be some centuries at least.”

Centuries. He knows the word, but it is still too vast for him to comprehend yet.

“Carnistir will be long grown then,” Feanor says.

“Yes,” the Maia agrees with some uncertainty. “What bearing has that matter on this one?”

“Amrod and Amras - “

“Wait,” Celegorm says.

His verbal speech has improved greatly, but in many ways he still relies on body language. He is hunched and uncertain now, but he wriggles out of Feanor’s grasp and stalks forward anyway, forcing his shoulders back to make himself look bigger. “What about me?”

The Maia looks down at him. “Demdaer and Dagriel are not dead,” he says with some surprise. “Did you not know?”

Feanor feels the fire slowly growing in his blood. “Then they too have fallen into the hunter’s grasp?”

“No,” the Maia says, seeming startled. “Oromë reported that they simply preferred not to come.” He shakes his head at this.

Simply preferred not to -

All of his assumptions about what, exactly, Celegorm was doing alone in those woods are suddenly turned on their head.

Maybe they were simply separated from him. Maybe he wandered off. Maybe - 

“They said they’d come back,” Celegorm says slowly, testing each word as he says it. “They did not come back.”

“I am not kept informed on such matters,” the Maia tells him. “I can, however, tell you the fate of the twins’ parents; Teliadis and Cedhrion rest in these Halls. They shall be released shortly before Ferirel, Carnistir’s mother.”

Centuries from now.

It should be a relief, selfish at is is, but all he feels is incredulous rage. 

Rage at Celegorm’s parents for not coming back as they promised. Rage at the dismissal of hope for the elves caught by Melkor. Rage that the Maia is even now turning away from them, nothing more to be done.

He walks forward, Carnistir stumbling along with him, and he retakes Celegorm’s hand. Celegorm hardly seems to notice at first, but then he latches on with a strength that puts Macalaure’s chokehold to shame and twists so that he can take firm hold of the cloth of Feanor’s tunic with his other hand.

Feanor closes his eyes and resists the urge to scream. 

He succeeds, barely, but the fire is still building and won’t be tamped down.

Celegorm clings even more tightly to his tunic.

“I won’t leave you,” he promises. 

Amras is humming happily, no idea what has just been proclaimed. Nerdanel scoops him up silently, shifting her grip so that she can carry him and Curufin both.

Maitimo is still frozen, trembling with shock or grief or rage. His face is a mask Feanor can’t read.

“We’ll think of something,” Feanor promises him, though he has no idea what.

He’ll do whatever he has to, but he will not let this stand.

Even if he is so, so, grateful to be walking away from the Halls of the Dead with a family of nine still holding hands.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There comes a time in the life of every author when they look at something they just wrote and think, "I hate this."
> 
> There also sometimes comes a time when a particular author will realize that it has been six months since they have last updated a particular story and they will have to reluctantly concede that this is the best this chapter is currently going to get.
> 
> (Me. This author is me.)

It is not, Nienna warns him with her ever present tears, merely a matter of custom that forbids a double marriage. Elves create bonds between their fëa when they wed, and their minds are not built to bear the weight of two of those bonds at once.

“To try would tear your mind apart,” she says, and new tears tremble in her eyes.

Tirion, almost fully constructed now, gleams behind them in the silver light of Telperion. She has met him just outside the city with the Valar’s verdict, and he is so, so glad he came alone because it means he does not have to fight so hard to hide his grief behind the mask the people expect from their king.

“What can be done?” he asks. There must be something. He refuses to accept the idea that Miriel might be condemned forever to the Halls for his ignorance. 

Her hand touches his, and it feels like rain, like the moment after the last sob has been coughed up and catharsis has come. “We think we can break the bond.”

His thoughts stutter to a halt. “What?”

“It will be difficult,” she admits. “But with the consent of both parties, we believe we can break the marred bond and make it safe for Miriel to emerge from the Halls.”

“The marred bond,” he repeats. “Which one do you believe is marred?”

For the first time, she hesitates.

The logic is simple, in the end. In a perfect world, he would not have married twice because he would have had no need to. Either Miriel would have lived - making his bond with Indis the marred one, a consequence of his grief and nothing more - or he would have married Indis in the first place, making his bond with Miriel the mistake.

And the children from such a bond . . .

It’s not such a far leap to say they would be marred as well. Even if the Valar do not declare it, there are already whispers among the people. The whispers will only get worse, and he dreads to think what those whispers might grow to become.

His marriages have not felt marred. Imperfect, yes, but not - not mistakes. Not something from the shadows to fear.

If he declares his bond with Indis marred, will they still allow Findis to emerge from the Halls, or will they judge her as they have judged Maitimo’s parents - too marred for healing before the breaking of the world?

If he declares in favor of Feanor, will his son stand where he is in a few centuries time, wrenched by an all too similar choice as he attempts to choose an heir between the first son of his body and the first son of his heart?

Feanor is brilliant, capable of doing anything he sets his mind to, and he has done this before. He led well and wisely when Finwe was away, but the world has changed since then, and with this chasm about to open between them, he can no longer be sure Nolofinwe will stand firmly at his brother’s back.

It is not really the crown Feanor wants, it is the chieftainship, and that is gone. He would not have thought their world could change so quickly, but it has. No longer does leading their people mean devising increasingly desperate ways to ensure their survival; now it means navigating the increasingly complicating arguments that have arisen now that they have time and energy to devote to anything that is not surviving the next winter. It is the first that Feanaro loves, not the second. Feanor has devoted all his brilliance to his peoples battles with joyous fervor, but he has little patience for their squabbles.

And not even that is the heart of it, he tells himself desperately. Feanor is good at leading, but it is not what he loves; what he loves are his family and his craft, and he covets his title only as proof that Finwe’s long ago promise still stands, that his marriage to Indis has changed nothing, that Feanor will always be first in his heart.

He can grant him that without making him crown prince; he can grant him anything if he will only believe -

But there will be no time. He will declare his choice, and he will step forward into shadow, and he will lose his chance to tell him before time because he fears if he tells his family what he intends, he will be stopped.

Feanor will have his mother back. Perhaps someday that will be enough.

(He cannot, in the end, declare either marriage marred. He will not. Nor is he willing to risk all of their minds on the hope that the Valar are right and a bond can be safely broken.

Not when the Valar have so recently admitted that their knowledge is not so perfect after all.

And not when there is a proven way that is very, very sure.

He will walk into the Halls. Miriel will walk out. He will not have to declare anything marred.

He will, however, have to declare an heir. That fact is less escapable than ever.

If one of his sons was too young, as Arafinwe still is - if one was clearly entirely unsuited -

But Nolofinwe is a man grown now, and he is utterly certain that both Feanor and Nolofinwe could make utterly brilliant kings. Different, certainly, but both utterly brilliant.

If he declares for Feanor, how long before the office becomes a chain? How long before Feanor must face his own impossible choice?

If he declares for Nolofinwe, how long until Feanor forgives his memory? How long until Nolofinwe does for driving this wedge between them?

He knows what he is going to do. He knows what it is going to cost.

He knows that what he does is one part love and one part cowardice, and he is going to do it anyway because he cannot bear to do anything else.)

He does not look at his family when he declares his intentions before them and the full court of the Valar because he cannot bear to see their pain.

He does not look at his family when he declares Nolofinwe his heir because he cannot bear to see - Cannot bear to see whatever it is they think of him now.

He does not look at them for a full minute after Namo speaks because it takes him that long to understand what the Vala has just said.

Miriel has declined to return.

And he has torn his family apart for nothing.

By the time he turns, Feanor is gone. 

Nolofinwe is not speaking to his father.

Prince Nolofinwe is speaking to the king, certainly, but that is an entirely different matter. 

The whole family is in an uproar over nearly losing Finwe, but the worst of it is Feanor, who is not speaking to any of them at all, and Nolofinwe does not know quite what to do with the absence. There is an empty space in front of him where his brother should stand, leading the way; there is a terrifying void behind him where his brother has always stood in protection.

The second worst part, when he pauses and allows himself to think, is that he understands what his father has done. 

The very worst part is that sometimes, before, he had allowed himself to want this. In those terrifying days when Atar had been gone, and Feanor had stood in his place, Nolofinwe had stood beside him, helping him, so that Feanor would have time to continue doing all the other things he did - building their people better weapons, building better shelters, thinking, planning, being _brilliant_ \- and he had thought, once or twice, that maybe it would be better if Feanor had even more time to be brilliant, if Nolofinwe took the lead entirely. The thought had returned, more and more, as they’d settled into Aman, and Nolofinwe had realized how much he loved the rush of piecing together the puzzle of the ever growing maze of politics that were popping up around them, and how much Feanaro . . . didn’t.

Except, he thinks miserably, the actual worst part is that Feanor is gone, Feanor's whole family is just gone, and there are reports of them in the north, but Nolofinwe can’t chase after them because he’s too busy putting out fires here.

Metaphorical fires. 

Mostly.

There is a growing percentage of the population who take issue with the Valar, or their new lands, or - well, with anything and everything, really, and all of them have pinned their hopes on Feanor because they see him as one of their own.

And Nolofinwe can stay here and support his king, and watch over his younger brother, who is too young to fully understand what is going on, and his older-younger sister, who is definitely too young to know what is going on, and his very youngest sister, who is absolutely beyond question too young to understand what is going on, or he can stop sending letters and start sending himself.

He is debating that question once more when he retreats from the court to his office. The scribe who helps him is already waiting in the antechamber, and her anxiety is palpable.

He has meetings from now until the Mingling. He doesn’t think he can bear for one more thing to go wrong. This is supposed to be his _five minutes_ of peace, what could possibly have happened - 

“Your brother showed up,” she blurts out, and for a moment he thinks she means Arafinwe before she adds, “I don’t know how he came into the city without stirring up talk, but even the guards didn’t seem to realize, he was just _there - “_

“Feanor,” he breathes, and he looks around frantically, half-expecting him to melt out of the woodwork while explaining his new work on invisibility. “Where is he?” The office, of course, she’ll have made him more comfortable, and he’s already heading towards it when she says -

She says -

“I asked him if he wouldn’t rather rest first, but he said no, and I asked him if he wouldn’t like refreshment first, or to see his other siblings, I tried, I did - but he kept saying no, and finally I had to tell him that you just didn’t have time - “

Nolofinwe freezes. “You said _what.”_

She’s wringing her hands now, but he can’t quite bring himself to care.

He does not, technically, have time, she’s right. There’s barely a moment between meetings, and these are important meetings where important decisions are going to be made.

These are important decisions that are going to have to be made without him because he is already on his way out the door.


End file.
